


Sharp Metal Edges

by 61Below



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Machinists just want to have fun, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 13:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2231448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/61Below/pseuds/61Below
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long story short, don't go shuffling around Avengers Tower barefoot. </p>
<p>Or, how Tony Stark is an over-caffeinated menace, and Darcy Lewis does not take any of his shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharp Metal Edges

**Author's Note:**

> **Trigger Watch: mention of non-graphic actions related to self harm**

Darcy paced in her hotel room, clutching a dead tazer. Jane wasn’t back yet, but he was out there, and if Jane didn’t get back, he would get her. Someone knocked on the hallway door, and Darcy hurried to look through the peep hole. Jane…Jane would have the key. No one was outside the door. Someone started pounding on the poolside door, and Darcy sprinted across the room to look out that peephole, because really, this was Jane, and Jane could have lost her key, and what if he was out there after her… No one was outside the poolside door. Darcy backed into the middle of the room, and both doors started banging, rattling in their frames, and even though the knew the deadbolts were locked, whoever was out there might be strong enough to break down the doors, and then she saw his arm start to pour through the keyhole and—  


She sat up, gasping. Her room was dark and blurry, and…oh. Darcy flopped back with a groan. Another nightmare. Another scary-something-or-nother-trying-to-break-in scenario. Last night had been zombies outside a convenience store’s plate widow. The night before last had been someone creeping around outside her suite door, and curling around her pillow knowing she’d forgotten to lock it. Shuddering, she threw off her covers and leapt out of bed. If she didn’t fully wake herself up, she’d fall right back into the nightmare again. And the lucid, half-awake-but-still-dreaming nightmares were the worst. She grabbed for her glasses and stumbled out.  


The Tower’s hallways were dimly lit at night, but every light in the kitchen was on. Darcy squinted and held up a hand to shield her face, muttering, “Bright light, bright light,” and shuffling so she wouldn’t stub her toe on a stool or something.  


She heard Iron Man chirp, “What’re you doing up this late, Gizmo—” but she cut him off with a yelp.  


“Ow, splinter! Ow!” She hobbled, walking on the edge of her foot. Tony came around the island to catch her elbow before she fell.  


“What do you mean ‘splinter’, these floors are ti—oh. Shit, forgot to blow off.” He helped Darcy limp to the couch.  


“What?” she asked, still sleep-stupid, squinting. Tony was wearing a filthy grey sweatshirt and a pair of holey jeans, covered with smears of grease, and somehow…sparkly?  


“Um, yeah. Aluminum shavings? From the Bridgeport? You’re not wearing shoes…” Darcy just stared at him, not following in the slightest, and he quipped, “Just, lay back and make your foot fall asleep. I’ll go…fix this.” Half wondering if she was still asleep, Darcy flopped back and decided to roll with it. She heard, “Jarvis? Can you run one of the rubber sweeper bots?” “Of course, sir.” and then she was alone.  


Her foot was throbbing like a mother—. The faint whine of one of Tony Stark’s version of a Roomba reached her ears. The rest of the Tower was silent. “…Jarvis?”  


“Yes, Miss Lewis?”  


“What just happened?”  


At that moment, Tony Stark walked back into the living room, carrying a little red bag. He’d stripped off the sweatshirt, and the arc reactor glowed through his t-shirt. “You awake now, Sleeping Beauty?”  


Darcy rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses and said, “Is this real life?” He snorted, and she continued, voice still rough from sleep, “No, I’m up, I’m up. What were you rambling about just now?”  


He sat on the couch and took hold of her foot, examining it closely. He ran a sensitive, calloused finger tip lightly over where the splinter dug into her foot. “I forgot to blow myself off before I left the shop.” Darcy couldn’t help it, she threw her head back onto the cushions and laughed. “What? Those metal shavings get everywhere, and the air compressor’s the best way to get ‘em off.” She snickered some more and he rolled his eyes with a gusty sigh. Then he tapped her ankle. “This is deep. Is your foot asleep yet?”  


Darcy shook her head with a grimace. Finding innuendo everywhere was fine and dandy, but pain was coming. Tony took her ankle and lifted her leg straight up, scooting over to brace it on the back of the couch with his shoulder. Her pajama pant fell down to above her knee, and suddenly Darcy was struck by the fact that holy shit her bare leg was touching Iron Man’s bare, not-to-be-scoffed-at bicep. He pulled her other leg into his lap and looked down at her face expectantly. “Let me know when you’re all pins and needles.” Then he tapped a short tattoo on her calf.  


Darcy stared at him, asking, “Just how caffeinated are you?” She could feel him practically bouncing in place.  


“Just caffeinated enough,” he replied with a grin, but Darcy noticed it was a little bit strained.  


She tucked an arm behind her head and asked, “When’s the last time you slept?” His eyes tightened and she felt him shrug. She’d never been this close to him before. He was so warm, and he smelled like grease and sweat and…crayons?  


…And from his expression, she’d said that part out loud. “Yes? Crayons? What about crayons?”  


She blushed and muttered, “Never mind, faulty brain-mouth filter.”  


He flapped a hand at her. “We don’t hold with those brain-mouth filters here. Go on.”  


She twisted a hand in the hem of her henley. “Just, um, why do you smell like crayons?” Oh God she’d never be able to meet his eyes again. He’d never come and hang out in Jane’s lab at all hours with her again. They’d never run into each other for impromptu get-drunk-and-moan-about-their-exes nights on the roof again.  


Instead he just sniffed his shoulder. “Crayons, huh? I think it’s the whale blubber they put in cutting fluid.”  


She blinked. “Whaa?”  


“Sometime I’m going to drag you out of the physics lab and show you where the real stuff is made. Cutting fluid is exactly what it sounds like: it keeps the cutter lubricated while it works.”  


Darcy rolled her eyes. “Ok now I know you’re deliberately working little innuendos into this conversation.”  


“Just this conversation?” Their eyes locked, and Darcy forgot where she’d put her lungs. Then Tony blurted, “How’s your foot?”  


Darcy blinked, thrown off balance, and tried to wiggle her toes. “Gone like yesterday,” she said, a little surprise coloring her tone.  


Tony hummed, unzipped his first aid bag, and warned, “Don’t fight me.” He pulled out a razor blade and kneeled, pinning her leg between his chest and the back of the couch. Darcy could feel the hard edge of his arc reactor pressing into her calf, and she looked far, far away. When she felt him make the first cut, she made a strangled little noise in the back of her throat. He started crooning at her, working the same slicing cut over and over, and because her foot was completely asleep, it didn’t hurt, but she knew he was cutting her and that made her throw an arm over her face, and all she heard was, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”  


He had both hands around her ankle, thumbs stroking her skin lightly, and he rested his forehead against her bare calf. Darcy pulled her arm away from her face, and touched his shoulder. “Hey,” she said gently, “Hey now. Stop beating yourself up.”  


Tony didn’t move, just whispered, “But I hurt you.” His thumbs kept rubbing back and forth and…  


Darcy pushed herself half-up with her elbows, acutely aware that his knee was very close to the apex of her legs. Her henley rode up a little, baring a pale flash of her midriff. She just said, “Stark,” and waited for him to look at her. He didn’t, so she said softly, “Tony.” He peeped at her out of the corner of his eye. Still she waited. Then he turned his head and met her eyes. “This might hurt for a little while, but I’ll deal with it. It’s not your fault, you didn’t mean it, and you fixed it anyway. Stop beating yourself up.” He buried his face back into her calf, and the prickle of his facial hair sent electric chills up her spine. She wriggled her numb foot a little and said, “Now, find me a bandaid so I can put my foot back on.”  


Tony’s head snapped back at her, and he scoffed, “Bandaid? What sort of heathen do you think I am? I know there’s superglue in here somewhere.”  


"Superglue?!"  


"Just hold still, I don’t want to glue myself to your foot. That would be bad for both of us." He dug around in the first aid bag, uncapped the half-empty tube, dabbed a bit on her foot, and gently blew. A wave of want nearly swamped her. She wanted to feel that when her foot wasn’t asleep. Oh she wanted…so much more…. Then Tony turned and put her leg down. He reached out a hand to help her sit up, but then he made to stand, and Darcy gripped his hand tighter.  


"Stay, please. At least until my foot stops tingling and I can walk again."  


Tony hesitated, one knee next to her leg on the couch, one foot on the floor, and he said, “At least let me go get you what you wanted from the kitchen in the first place.”  


She still held tight. “I already found it.”  


He froze and whispered, “Darce…”  


She gulped. “Tell me you just come down to the lab to bug Jane.” He said nothing. “Tell me you ‘just randomly’ bump into me on the roof all those nights.” He said nothing. “Tell me I’m imagining the way you look at me and see me, like I’m your everyth—”  


He cut her off with a searing kiss. She gasped into his mouth as he bore her down onto the cushions again. This time, she wrapped her tingling leg around his waist, and he tangled his fingers in her hair. He pulled her flush against him, his arc reactor hard against her breasts, his—  


Tony swept her heavy hair back and ran light kisses down her neck, from ear to collarbone, and Darcy keened. At that he laughed, a little manically, perhaps, and rested his cheek on her chest. Darcy couldn’t feel his heart racing in his chest, but she could feel his pulse hammering in his fingers. She ran a hand gingerly through his dirty hair, knowing she was grinning like a loon, and not giving a single damn. His thumb traced a line back and forth over the bare skin on her side, and she wrapped her arms tightly around him. They stayed like that, embraced, for quite a while, and eventually Darcy found her foot again. It hurt, but as much from the splinter as from the means of getting it out.  


She could hear Tony’s breathing start to even out, though, so she poked him gently in the side. “Come on, dear, let’s get you to bed.”  


His response was muffled by her cleavage. “So, we’re to pet names already, pookie?”  


"Yes schnookums, and don’t even try to deny that you love it." She smirked at him, he sat up and smirked at her. Then he kissed her, hard, once more and led her up to his room.

**Author's Note:**

> This little fic was a love letter to my husband, who is (...jazz hands) also a machinist. There are a few facts of life that you have to deal with when you live with a machinist. 1) they are always covered in razor-sharp metal shavings. 2) they then cover every surface with these shavings. The floor, the couch, the bed...everywhere. Splinters in my feet? I bid you to imagine what splinters in the sheets will do. 3) cutting fluid smells like crayons, and because the smell comes from whale grease, it's an unholy pain in the rear to get out in the laundry. 4) they have strong, dexterous, _detail-oriented_ hands.


End file.
